This announcement (Adobe Acrobat format) announces the winners of the 15th annual Interactive Achievement Awards (IAAs). The big winner this year was The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Bethesda's RPG sequel:

The night’s big winner was The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which grabbed Game of the Year honors and a total of five (5) awards in recognition of its excellent storytelling and extensive and immersive world. Other big winners included the blockbuster Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, which was recognized for technical achievements that brought the game to life, walked away with a total of three (3) IAAs. Likewise, the cross-over hit puzzle-platformer Portal 2 walked away with three (3) IAAs. The energetic motion game Fruit Ninja Kinect sliced and diced the competition to come out on top as Casual Game of the Year. Continuing to be a hot topic in the industry, Social and Mobile gaming took flight with Infinity Blade II taking Mobile Game of the Year and The Sims Social winning Social Networking Game of the Year.

I guess that we'll have to agree to disagree... Many of the books have pertinent information about many puzzles in the game (i. e. Pillar puzzle solutions hidden in texts, information on locations that you might find otherwise, but with difficulty).

I also take exception to the lack of branching comment: for instance, if you are allied with the Blades, you will have make a tough decision about the resident at The Throat of the World. Should you join the Dark Brotherhood, you risk alliances you have throughout Skyrim when you execute contracts.

Everyone talks about how great Deus Ex was, but consider: at the end of that game every decision you made didn't matter at all. All that mattered was which of the four buttons you pressed. Not who or how many people you killed or didn't kill. Just what button you pressed.

Granted, most of Skyrim's literature isn't directly pertinent to any of the quests or characters but to automatically dismiss it as filler is a bit short-sighted

It's filler from the point of quests was my point. Reading about Saarthal, for example, can provide quite a bit of detail about what it was, why it existed, and how its downfall came about. But it does absolutely nothing in terms of affecting how the quest plays out, or giving you any insight into different paths to choose in going about the quest. It's just "here's the backstory on Saarthal". Nice, but not relevant to the quest plot.

The books are the most well-written part of Skyrim, just like they were in Morrowind and Oblivion. You get a much greater appreciation for the lore by reading the books.

Unfortunately, the rest of the writing doesn't fare so well, especially when it comes to choice and consequence. I've done quite a few quests so far and there have been so, so many wasted opportunities. So many ways that they could have offered branching paths or interesting moral choices. Unfortunately, most of the quests are completely linear. You either do them or you don't.

As for the difference between plot and backstory, that's a pretty slippery slope. Lore is a pretty important part of RPGs. In DX3, reading all of the e-mails, PDAs, newspapers, TV news tickers, etc, not only develops the characters and backstory but can also help you predict most of the game's plot twists. Ignoring all that stuff leads to a significantly diminished understanding of the story. Granted, most of Skyrim's literature isn't directly pertinent to any of the quests or characters but to automatically dismiss it as filler is a bit short-sighted. It's the primary means through which the lore is conveyed and lore is a fundamental part of any RPG.

Again, your opinion on the presentation may vary, but that doesn't mean the content and story aren't there.

I never said they aren't there. I said they aren't very good, because, well, they are not. The plot lines are incredibly shallow, boring, and one dimensional. They are lacking in any degree of moral ambiguity, world cohesion, and meaningful player choice. When you compare then to something like Fallout: New Vegas, it's pretty painfully apparent that they aren't even in the same league (and F:NV isn't even the pinnacle of plot/storyline, although it's pretty good).

If you read through a book in the game, and it provides information on a quest or plot thereof, it's a part of the story, not "background. "

Sorry, you're wrong. It only becomes part of the story if it actually impacts how things play out in the game. If there is no actual in-game difference between doing the quest without reading the book, and doing the quest with reading the book (and there never is), then the book is completely superfluous to the plot. It's filler, even if it makes interesting reading.

You're not going to get the full depth of the story unless you actually read the books, notes, and talk to characters. Running through the question for XP is like complaining about how little there was in NYC based solely on what you saw from the freeway.

You're confusing background with plot. Skyrim has a good background - it should, considering they've been building it for 5 games - but that doesn't mean it has good storylines for the plots. Even the very best plots have quite weak storylines.

I've got 240+ hour into it, and I'm STILL finding new locations, main quests, and unique story elements.

Quantity doesn't equal quality.

No, I'm not confusing them at all. If you read through a book in the game, and it provides information on a quest or plot thereof, it's a part of the story, not "background. "

Dislike it if you want, but don't say it doesn't have plot or deep storytelling. It does. You just don't happen to agree with the presentation.

And when I find something new in a game after 240+ hours of play that makes me want to find out what happens, that's not content bloat--that's value.

Again, your opinion on the presentation may vary, but that doesn't mean the content and story aren't there.

You're not going to get the full depth of the story unless you actually read the books, notes, and talk to characters. Running through the question for XP is like complaining about how little there was in NYC based solely on what you saw from the freeway.

You're confusing background with plot. Skyrim has a good background - it should, considering they've been building it for 5 games - but that doesn't mean it has good storylines for the plots. Even the very best plots have quite weak storylines.

I've got 240+ hour into it, and I'm STILL finding new locations, main quests, and unique story elements.

Would get my nod for GOY 2011 - for 2012 is sucks big time.Last set of patches and HD content makes it crash to desktop every couple of minutes, completely unplayable now. Rollback all mods and HD update and turn down a few graphics settings that where fine before and it's almost playable again - nice work on QA for that patch guys! I guess they already got all awards and stuff.

Huh. I wonder if he'll feel that way after we see all the DLC-support that this game will receive over the next year.

Most likely. I am surprised however, I've yet to see anyone claim that the storylines in Skyrim are good - are you the first?

There's no doubt the game shines in other areas (I did call it a "great game" after all), but that doesn't mean it doesn't have any deficiencies, and the storylines are some of the more glaring ones.

I'm pretty sure I just did.

This game is pretty deep--especially considering that it's a dungeon crawler. And that a good quantity of the menial quests are randomly generated.

You're not going to get the full depth of the story unless you actually read the books, notes, and talk to characters. Running through the quests solely for XP is like complaining about how little there was in NYC based solely on what you saw from the freeway.

I've got 240+ hour into it, and I'm STILL finding new locations, main quests, and unique story elements.

Yosemite Sam wrote on Feb 10, 2012, 19:46:Lots of Devs release highly polished, bug free games. It's ludicrous to defend a not ready for prime time buggy release by using other buggy games as an example, they are ALL unacceptable.

But...who? I could name the most bug free games I've played in the last year and I'm sure someone else could post about a problem they had with it.

The point I was refuting was that "these things are acceptable now" anyway; it's always been this way. It probably always will be. Bug free games don't exist; most likely even the most polished game you bought in the last five years had a patch.

Bhruic wrote on Feb 10, 2012, 16:32:The tragedy of Skyrim is in its potential. It's a great game as is, but they could have done a lot more with it, especially in the story department.

-> bilnk <- -> blink <-

^D^

Huh. I wonder if he'll feel that way after we see all the DLC-support that this game will receive over the next year. Skyrim is not only a huge success for Bethesda, but a huge investment. They're not done yet.

Yosemite Sam wrote on Feb 10, 2012, 18:42:Like I said, this is considered normal and acceptable now. Funny how people jump to defend developers releasing buggy games. Yet I'm the bad guy because I expect to not have pay $60 to finish beta testing for them, something they used to have to pay people to do.

When have PC games ever been bug free releases? Daggerfall came out in what, 97? It had bugs in it like crazy, but it was still awesome. I remember it not even starting on my brother's system because he had a non-Intel processor.

Ultima VII had serious sound issues. Ultima IX they actually sent out new CD's to people who bought it because of game breaking bugs. The early games in the Jedi Knight series had a few serious bugs that I remember dealing with, and Jedi Academy had at least one game breaking bug. I could go on and on, but... this isn't a new issue.

Besides, Skyrim was playable out of the box just fine. There were issues that some people ran into, just like with other games, but it's not like they shipped a broken game and then got GOTY awards for it.

I'm backing PropheT up on this one. Once I found that my Antivirus (Threatfire) was borking up the game and shut it down, it ran flawlessly. The only crash I've had since then was when the 1.4 patch came out and SVSE was a little buggered. Went away with their .10 release. And a mod causing a problem is hardley the dev's fault.

Yosemite Sam wrote on Feb 10, 2012, 18:42:Like I said, this is considered normal and acceptable now. Funny how people jump to defend developers releasing buggy games. Yet I'm the bad guy because I expect to not have pay $60 to finish beta testing for them, something they used to have to pay people to do.

When have PC games ever been bug free releases? Daggerfall came out in what, 97? It had bugs in it like crazy, but it was still awesome. I remember it not even starting on my brother's system because he had a non-Intel processor.

Ultima VII had serious sound issues. Ultima IX they actually sent out new CD's to people who bought it because of game breaking bugs. The early games in the Jedi Knight series had a few serious bugs that I remember dealing with, and Jedi Academy had at least one game breaking bug. I could go on and on, but... this isn't a new issue.

Besides, Skyrim was playable out of the box just fine. There were issues that some people ran into, just like with other games, but it's not like they shipped a broken game and then got GOTY awards for it.

Lots of Devs release highly polished, bug free games. It's ludicrous to defend a not ready for prime time buggy release by using other buggy games as an example, they are ALL unacceptable.

bigspender wrote on Feb 10, 2012, 18:05:only a couple of serious bugs? and you are OK with that? like the one that destroys your saved games on PS3?

the only thing skyrim has going for it is that its another chapter in TES, and that all of the other similar games have been even worse.

I'm level 36 conjuration100/destruction100 mage and im still waiting for it to be fun. I feel like that after I completed the first dungeon crawl saw just about everything there was to see.

Dunno, I don't play on a console. Maybe that's half your problem right there. Don't play on a shitty console.

I seem to remember you saying you sunk several weeks into playing it but you're complaining about a dungeon crawl? I suppose you could always mod the dungeon to make it more diffi...oh wait...console. Never mind.

--"For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution; and it is always wrong." --H.L. Mencken

Yosemite Sam wrote on Feb 10, 2012, 18:42:Like I said, this is considered normal and acceptable now. Funny how people jump to defend developers releasing buggy games. Yet I'm the bad guy because I expect to not have pay $60 to finish beta testing for them, something they used to have to pay people to do.

When have PC games ever been bug free releases? Daggerfall came out in what, 97? It had bugs in it like crazy, but it was still awesome. I remember it not even starting on my brother's system because he had a non-Intel processor.

Ultima VII had serious sound issues. Ultima IX they actually sent out new CD's to people who bought it because of game breaking bugs. The early games in the Jedi Knight series had a few serious bugs that I remember dealing with, and Jedi Academy had at least one game breaking bug. I could go on and on, but... this isn't a new issue.

Besides, Skyrim was playable out of the box just fine. There were issues that some people ran into, just like with other games, but it's not like they shipped a broken game and then got GOTY awards for it.

Yosemite Sam wrote on Feb 10, 2012, 17:33:A bug infested game wins GOTY. I remember when only PC games suffered from this (actually I remember when even PC games had to work properly out of the box)and console games had to work. Now that console games can be patched too they are pushed out the door incomplete. Gamers sure are suckers for punishment, amazes me how this is considered normal AND acceptable now.

Bug infested? I can only remember a couple of serious bugs on release. It was by far better than oblivion in that regards. Ranting for the sake of ranting?

only a couple of serious bugs? and you are OK with that?

Like I said, this is considered normal and acceptable now. Funny how people jump to defend developers releasing buggy games. Yet I'm the bad guy because I expect to not have pay $60 to finish beta testing for them, something they used to have to pay people to do.